Kathleen LeBesco

About

Dr. Katie LeBesco, Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Professor of Communication and Media Arts, serves as a member of the President’s Cabinet, responsible for executive leadership and management, presidential communications, Board relations and management, fundraising coordination, and strategic initiatives.

She has taken on various roles at MMC over 25+ years. For the 2021-22 academic year, Dr. LeBesco served as Interim Vice President for Student Success and Engagement. Previously, Dr. LeBesco served as Interim Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty, as well as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and provided interim leadership to the Office of Institutional Advancement.

Dr. LeBesco joined the MMC faculty in the department of Communication Arts in 1998, serving as chair from 2005-2010, and was named Distinguished Chair in 2009. Her courses include Principles and Theories of Communication, History and Development of Communication Theory, Communication Today, Gender, Sexuality and Media, Media Criticism, Public Speaking, Edible Ideologies: The Politics of Food, Feminist and Queer Theory, Queer Eye: Lesbian and Gay Cinema, and Eating New York. 

Dr. LeBesco’s books include The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture (Bloomsbury, 2017), Culinary Capital (Berg Press, 2012), Edible Ideologies: Representing Food and Meaning (SUNY Press, 2008), Revolting Bodies? The Struggle to Redefine Fat Identity (UMass Press, 2004), The Drag King Anthology (Harrington Park Press, 2003), and Bodies Out of Bounds: Fatness and Transgression (UCalifornia Press, 2001). In addition, Dr. LeBesco has authored more than thirty scholarly journal articles and book chapters in edited collections. Dr. LeBesco’s work concerns food and popular culture, fat activism, disability and representation, feminist and queer politics, and cultural status.

Her most recent work, Dining in US National Parks: Cosmopolitan Taste and Food Tourism, is forthcoming from Routledge.

Degrees

B.A., The State University of New York at Albany
M.A., The State University of New York at Albany
Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Recent Work

Co-chair, Website Redevelopment Committee
Chair, Presidential Task Force to Restart MMC (post-COVID)
Chair, Environmental Sustainability SPIN Team
Co-chair, 2017-2021 Strategic Plan
Liaison, MMC Board of Trustees